Shulkan bimkom Mishkan

We are back for another year of monthly Talmud study with Lehrhaus Judaica in the San Francisco Bay Area with Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Pruzan.

Lehrhaus's German Universalist Legacy

On this, our first meeting on November 6, 2016, Peretz reminded us that our Bay Area Lehrhaus Judaica was inspired by a prominent school of Jewish learning by the same name in Frankfurt, Germany during the inter-war era. The Frankfurt school was founded in 1920 by the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929).  Martin Buber taught there; so did Gershom Scholem, Leo Loewenthal, Benno Jacob, and Shmuel Y. Agnon. Rosenzweig was dead (at age 42 of ALS) four years before the Nazis came to power and nine years before they ultimately shut down the school in 1938.

Franz Rosenzweig shortly before his death

The Frankfurt Lehrhaus, being German and of philosophical bent, was universalist in its outlook. Rosenzweig struggled with metaphysical issues of his time through a Jewish lens. His most famous work was The Star of Redemption. 

We perceive the world subjectively through our senses. We have tunnel vision. Being hairless apes, we have a keen sense of touch. We are gourmands and appreciators of fine wines so we have an advanced sense of taste. On the other hand, our dogs have a much better sense of hearing and smell than we do. From these limited and compromised sense data we amalgamate a world in our brains. We tell ourselves stories about this world. We apply motivated reasoning. We are able to learn about this world from others; but in fundamental ways, we inhabit a subjective interior world.

This subjectivity leads to epistemological problems. How do we really know anything about the outside world? How do we bridge the gap? Descartes worried about this in an extreme way, finding bedrock with his cogito ergo sum. And ultimately Descartes resorted to God as well ("he would never deceive us like that, would he?")  Rosenzweig, too, worried about how our interior world can be reconciled with the outside world? He concluded--as described by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy--that Judaism manages to bridge the gap between our interior selves and the world through the redemptive powers of God. I read the Stanford encyclopedia entry.  I can't say I understand how this redemption works, or how it solves the problem of bridging the gap between the interior self and the outside world, for all mankind.

We have moved on from metaphysical issues. To the extent we are universalists today, it's rooted in the ethical, in tikkun olam, not in metaphysics.

The Order of Mishna, Gemara, and Talmud

To get reoriented, Peretz reminded us that the Mishna is the first major source of rabbinic literature (redacted by Judah HaNasi prior to his death in ~217 CE). Mishna is divided into six books: Seeds-Agriculture; Times--Sabbath & Holidays; Women--marriage & divorce; Damages--Civil & Criminal law; Holy Things--Ritual & Temple; and Rituals--rituals of purification.  Gemara, as we know, added additional material, building on Mishna--up until about 500 CE--following the same order. The Vilna edition of the Talmud, published in 1870-1880, included materials from the middle ages, and today, the Steinsaltz Koren Talmud Bavli includes additional interpretation and materials. See our notes from Peretz's Talmud Circle 6, last year on the evolution of Talmud. 

The book on seeds and agriculture (Seder Zeraim) comes first. It serves immediate needs. And like we might file a handwritten recipe away in a relevant section of our cookbooks, the rabbis ordered the prayers of Berakhot where we would use them. Seder Zeraim includes eleven tractates, and tractate Berakhot, which we've been studying for the past two years is the first tractate in Seder Zeraim.

Berakhot: The Tractate of Faith

Berakhot is the order of faith says the introduction. See p.1.  When it comes to faith, it is a hallmark of Talmud that "the abstract should be concretized and the sublime realized in a practical, detailed manner." Id.  Here is the definition of "faith" provided by the introduction: "[faith is] the total awareness in heart and mind that there is an everlasting connection between the Creator and man and that perpetual inspiration descends from the Creator to the world...."  Id.

This "total awareness in heart and mind" suggests that it involves (1) a feeling and (2) a conscious acceptance. We saw last year how the rabbis went to great lengths to describe Hannah's feelings as she approached God with her prayer. The rabbis prescribed this as the proper attitude to evoke this feeling of faith: we approach God with fear and gravity, in a heartfelt manner, with love and radical centeredness, reverently, with joy, but not too much joy....

"Faith" says the introduction, "achieves form and clarity when it is transformed into practical halakha.... Faith is manifest in the details of the halakhot, in the myriad blessings and in the formulation of prayer.... This general consciousness evolves into halakha, guidance how to live one's life."

Because the significance of Jewish concepts is manifest in the concrete, halakha has never stopped creating. "As the structure and circumstances of life change, new forms and styles develop in order to actualize the general, abstract concepts in those specific circumstances." P. 2.

Shulchan Bimkom Mishkan ("The table in place of the temple")

A major change in the form and style of Judaism occurred after the Hebrews conquered Palestine for the first time 2,900 years ago: they moved their nomadic movable tabernacle centered religious practice to the temple in Jerusalem. 

The Mishkan was the ancient tabernacle the Hebrews carried around with them. The construction of the Mishkan was mandated by Torah. See Exodus 25:8 ["And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst."]  Torah goes on to specify in great detail  the specifications for this Mishkan (or tabernacle), its enclosure and all it contains. See Exodus 25-30.  

The prescribed offering to God in this moveable Mishkan was sacrificial offerings. It was part of the divine-human partnership. God asked for his terumah in the Mishkan, and in exchange God offered to manifest his presence among the people. Exodus 29:43-46. God is pretty explicit about all this. And he says this is how the people of Israel shall do "for ever ... throughout their generations." Exodus 27:21; 28:43; and 29:42.

[Updated] But along came David and Solomon and their kingly hubris. "Now Solomon purposes to build a temple for the name of the Lord, and a royal palace for himself." 2 Chronicles 2:1. But see also 1 Chronicles  28:6. [David says: "(God) said to me 'It is Solomon your son who shall build my house and my courts.'" He didn't ask the Lord, and the Lord did not say--Solomon just did it. [But compare this self-serving hearsay with the language of Exodus, supra.] It's perhaps not such a great move: it simply moved the elements of the Mishkan to the "permanent" place of the Temple. The circumstances had changed; the Hebrews moved from the hills to the big city, and with this move they adapted their practice to fit with big city ways. 

When we began with Chapter V of Berakhot (p. 203) last year the rabbis were in the middle of a much more radical move: they reached back to a period before Solomon, through a thousand years to Hannah, and they focused on the nature of her prayer and decided to make prayer the central pillar of of Judaism.  The Tannaim abandoned both the Mishkan and the priestly sacrifices of the temple. Henceforth, prayer would be at the heart of the relationship between man and God.

Titus sack of Jerusalem, 70 A.D. /Ragan

This time it was not hubris, but necessity that drove the change. By the end of the period of the Tannaim (the rabbis who wrote down the oral law between about 10 CE - 220 CE) the temple had been destroyed for a second time and the Jews were dispersed after the Bar Kochba revolt (132-136 CE). The Mishkan centered practice was a thousand years in the past, and sacrifices could no longer be performed in the temple because the temple was in a rubble. So the rabbis reinvented Judaism anew, this time centered on individual prayer, communal prayer, and halakhah. Circumstances had changed and the focus was now on the table located in synagogues and study houses. 

Shulchan bimkom mishkan.

Svara

What permits such moves when circumstances change and necessity calls?  What permits Solomon to abandon the Mishkan and move the priests to the temple? What permits the Tannaim to abandon temple sacrifice and to substitute it with prayer? Necessity and svara. 

Here is Rabbi Benay Lappe: 

Svara allows any change–even to the point of uprooting the entire Tradition itself–to create a system that better achieves that Tradition’s ultimate goals.... Menachem Elon, the former Deputy Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, defined svara as: 

Elon's 4 Vol set

“Legal reasoning that penetrates into the essence of things and reflects a profound understanding of human nature. [It] involves…an appreciation of the characteristics of human beings in their social relationships, and a careful study of the real world and its manifestations.” 

In other words, you can’t be a Jewish ignoramous and claim that “what I think is right” is svara. It isn’t. And neither can you have never met a queer person and presume to legislate on matters of, well, just about anything in Jewish law. The Rabbis of the Talmud were explicit, though, that exercising one’s svara to upgrade the Tradition–to play the game, as it were–did not require rabbinic ordination. It didn’t for them, nor should it for us. But it did require learning.

Her Eli talk that Peretz points us to at the Lehrhaus blog is well worth the 17 minutes.

Changes in Halakah are usually incremental. Culture and Halakah interact and influence each other over time. For a very informative, nuanced, and conservative explanation of this process by a legal expert, read Roberta Kwall's The Myth of the Cultural Jew.  Lappe, in addition to being learned and a wonderful speaker, is an activist seeking acceptance by the tradition of LGBTQ people, and she speaks of "suffering at the hands of verse pointers." I'm sure she knows whereof she speaks.

The point of sava is that with legal reasoning "that penetrates into the essence of things and reflects a profound understanding of human nature," and human needs, we are able to adapt the tradition to changing circumstances and needs. Solomon was able to abandon the Mishkan for the temple tradition when Jews moved from the hills to the big city, and the Tannaim and Amoraim were able to abandon the priestly temple tradition for the rabbinic tradition of Talmud after the city was destroyed. Both did so in direct contravention of scripture. And they did so in order to save the tradition.

The Shema, Brachot, and Tefilot

We turned to the very beginning of Berakhot (i.e. the very beginning Talmud) where the rabbis are establishing a rationale for when to recite the Shema in the evening. Berakhot, p. 7. "From when does one recite Shema in the evening," asks the Mishna. And Mishna answers: "From the time when the priests entered to partake of their teruma."  

The teruma, of course, was the portion of the sacrifice that would go to feed the priests in the temple. Rules for when the temple priests would partake of the teruma were well worked out. What is the connection?  The teruma and prayer are both oral.  We use the same orifice for eating and praying.  So there you go..., we'll say the Shema in the evening at the same time as the temple priests used to partake of their teruma. 

Aside 1.  Before we eat, we say a bracha: we bless the food. A bracha is not a prayer. It is something external that we observe and that we respond to with a blessing. There are three types of blessings: (1) blessings said when we experience something pleasurable, such as food; for example, the motzi, which is the blessing said over bread; (2) blessings said when we fulfill a commandment, e.g when we put on tefillin; and (3) blessings that praise God or express gratitude.

Brachot (the plural form of bracha) are meant to acknowledge God as the source of all things. They all begin with the words “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheynu melech haolam,” which means, “Praised are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe.”  We can make up our own brachot. 

Aside 2. There are six types of blessings over food.

1. For Bread: "... Hamotzie lechem myn ha'aretz." (Who brings forth bread from the ground)
2. For Wine & Grape juice: "...Boreiy pree hagafen" (Who creates the fruit of the vine)
3. For Most Desserts: "...Boreiy minei mezonot" (Who creates various types of foods)
4. For Fruits: "...Boreiy pree ha'etz" (Who creates the fruit of the trees)
5. For Vegetables: "...Boreiy pree ha'adamah" (Who creates the fruits of the ground)
6. For Drinks, Meat, Fish, Cheese: "...Shehakol Nihyah bidvaro" (Everything was created through His words)

And, of course, it's important to categorize your food correctly and not to mix up your prayers. Trick question: "what blessing for tomato?"  Aha, it is a fruit, even though some say vegetable, so "Boreiy pree ha'etz!" What about a banana?  It grows on a tree, it's a fruit, so "Boreiy pree ha'etz!"   And what about a bagel and a banana on your plate? We say "Hamotzie lechem myn ha'aretz" because it is the all-purpose blessing the covers everything on your plate.

[Update: Nosson Potash, the Chabad Rabbi of Cole Valley takes issue with the above categorization of tomato and banana.  He says: "In general, "fruit" is ha'etz and "vegetables" ha'adamah. However, if you look at the words of the blessings it uses the phrase "... fruit of the ground" and ... "fruit of the tree". So it's not so much about whether it's a fruit or not, rather, the question is, what is considered a tree, and what is considered the land.]

So a bracha is an external observation that we honor. Blessings go back to the beginning. Abraham? 

Prayers come later.  Hannah was the first to offer prayer, and the tradition didn't really recognize--or name?--what she did until a thousand years later. Prayer is internal. Prayer comes from inside out. We can also write our own tefilot, of course. The formula is there for us to use.  

Aside 3.  The Shema, which we find here at the very beginning of Talmud,  is neither a bracha nor tefila. Some stand for the Shema, not Rabbi Steinsaltz. "It's not a cheer," he says. See his talk from last June HERE.  Reform Jews stand for the Shema. It was a response from observations in Germany that Jews do not have a catechism (a summary or exposition of doctrine serving as a learning introduction to the Sacraments). So the Reformers in Bremen said: "let' stand for the Shema."  Orthodox do not stand for the Shema. 

The Shema is a declaration of faith: "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them where you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie own, and when you arise." Deuteronomy 6:4-7.  

The second Mishna in Berakhot asks: "From when does one recite Shema in the morning?" And the rabbis discuss it, and there is a range of opinion.  Rabbi Eliezer says "from when we can distinguish between sky-blue and white, and you must finish by sunrise;" Rabbi Yehoshua says "until three hours as that is the habit of kings to rise."  Apparently Kings in ancient Israel kept bankers' hours.  The Mishna here echoes Genesis; it follows the rhythm of Genesis 1:15 "And there was evening and there was morning...."  

The Rabbis are imposing order on the chaos of the religion after the destruction of the temple and dispersal of the Jews. Like Genesis, they start without explanation, and they move from chaos to order. The Rabbis are creating a constitutional text. "If God can do it with the universe," say the Rabbis, we can do it in our community. And so they did. 

It catapults us forward to Berakhot chapter VI, where the Rabbis address specific blessings over food. And Note: the Chapters in between (Chapters 3, 4 and 5) including the material we covered last year, deviated from the opening themes of Mishna: they went to Hannah and fervent ecstatic prayer.  This year, with Chapter 6, we return to pick up where chapters 1 & 2 of tractate Berakhot left off.  Chapters 1 & 2 dealt with Shema and its declaration, and now we will talking about brachot. 

Rabbi Yosei Get's Schooled About not Praying in Ruins

We turn to page 14, Berakhot 3A. The Gemara relates that Rabbi Yosei, walking along the road, once entered the ruins of a building in Jerusalem to say his prayers. Elijah stands guard over him and waits respectfully. But when Rabbi Yosei was finished Elijah challenged him: "why did you pray in these ruins; you should have prayed along the road." And Rabbi Yosei learned three things from Elijah: 1) one may not enter a ruin; 2) one need not enter a building to pray, but we can do it in the open road, and 3) we can say an abbreviated prayer on the road in order to keep our focus. 

We don't enter ruins to pray.... and presumably this includes the temple. We've moved on from the temple. We can offer our prayers out on the road, anywhere.  

And while he was in that ruin, Rabbi Yosei heard the voice of God cooing like a dove: "woe to the children, due to whose sins I destroyed My house, burned My Temple, and exiled them among the nations." Elijah acknowledged this and said: "Not only does that voice cry out in that moment, but it cries out three times each and every day."  Not only that, "You should know that when Israel enters synagogues and study halls and answers in the kaddish prayer, God is happy to be praised in his house."  

Shulkan bimkom Mishkan. The open road, synagogues, and study halls, that's the thing. 

And the rabbis added additional reasons why we should not enter ruins--why we should forget about the temple... "People will whisper you went there with a prostitute,"... "the ruins might collapse,"... "there might be demons." Dayienu. Stay away from ruins, pray on the open road, head towards the synagogues and study halls! 

Aside 4. Consistent with this discouragement of approaching the temple ruins, prayer at the Kotel was discouraged for centuries. The Kotel was not considered a synagogue, like it is today. 

Aside 5. Cliff Detz advocates making this move away from the temple irrevocable. But longing for the temple remains, says Peretz. Prayer at the Kotel may have been discouraged, but many sought a pilgrimage once or twice in their life, perhaps. And some say we avoid the Kotel not because God truly doesn't want us to go there, but because we might be overcome with grief. Radical millennial movements are strong.  Just ask Yehuda Glick. We've got to use our sava. 

As Close to God as You Can in Your Form

We next turn to pages 112-113, Berakhot 17A, chat.2. The Gemara offers many examples here of rabbis making additional personal prayers after concluding their prayers. Zeira asks "that we not sin or shame ourselves, or disgrace ourselves before our forefathers...;" Rabbi Hiyya asks "that Torah be our vocation...;"  Rav asks "that you grant us long life of blessings...;" Rabbi HaNasi asks "that you save us from the arrogant...;" Rav Safra asks "that You establish peace in the heavenly entourage of angels...;" and Rav Ravina asks "may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart find favor before you, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer....;" etc. 

And we pay particular attention to Rav Sheshet. When Rav Sheshet sat in observance of a fast, he would say: "Master of the Universe, it is revealed before You that when the Temple is standing, one sins and offers a sacrifice. And although only the fat and blood from the sacrifice were offered on the alter, the sin is atoned for. And now [that the temple is not standing] I sat in a fast and my fat and blood diminished. May it be our will that my fat and blood that diminished be considered as if I offered a sacrifice before You on the altar...."  

Aside 6.  Rav Sheshet says "when the temple is standing...." In both Mishna and Gemara the temple is never in the past tense because it exists in two places: in Yeshiva Amata (earthly plane) and in Yeshiva Amallah (the heavenly plane).  In the heavenly plane, the temple is permanent. Milton picks this up in Paradise Lost; an imagined better place that's constant and can't be touched.  So when Rav Sheshet says the temple "is" standing, he refers to this constant imagined, better place. And at the same time this present tense does service in the messianic view: "when it's standing again." 

Aside 7.  One offers a sin offering, a qorban. The purpose of offering a sacrifice is to be near God--the sacrifice turns to fire and smoke and heat that rises, earth wind and fire going up towards God. Nothing gets destroyed. Life can be reconstituted.  This harkens back to when the world was an unformed void. Genesis 1.  God doesn't create anything in creation, everything get's organized. 

We can no longer sacrifice fat and blood of an animal upon the alter, but we can fast. We offer ourselves to God, as close to God as we can manage in our form. As he fasts, Rav Sheshet's diminishing fat is his offering to God.  In like manner, "The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart," which immediately precedes Rav Sheshet's fast here, are offerings.  It should cost us a little bit to make an offering. 

Rabbi Yohanan, a cheery fellow, notes we are all destined to die. So death is no great anguish and "happy is he who grew upon Torah, whose labor is in torah, who gives pleasure to his Creator, who grew up with a good name, and who took leave of the world with a good name." 

"Guard your mouth from all transgressions," says Rabbi Meir--because that's how we make brachot now. 

Aside 8.  Ramah is a high-place. The offering makes an arch. We say hallelujah. We are unburdened. We are lifted. I've paid my obligation. The crowd is all doing it too. Everyone cheers. 

Interchangeable Parts

And, finally, we turned to page 175, Berakhot 26b. The rabbis established a unified system that works. They managed to preserve the community. Here they are imposing order on when prayer may/must be recited: morning, afternoon, and evening.  Shulkan bimkom Mishkan.

Morning prayer.  Rabbi Yosei said: "prayers were instituted by the Patriarchs." He pointed to Genesis 19:27, where it says: "Abraham rose early in the morning to the place were he had stood before the Lord ... and from the context we must conclude that 'standing' here means 'prayer.'" [But it was not unanimous. Rabbi Yohshua ben Levi disagreed. He said: "the prayers were instituted based on the daily offerings sacrificed in the temple."] 

Afternoon prayer.  "Isaac instructed the afternoon prayer," said the rabbis.  And they pointed to Genesis 24:63, where it says Isaac went out to the field to "converse." 

Evening prayer.  And Jacob instituted the evening prayer, and the rabbis point to Genesis 28:11 "And he encountered the place and he slept there for the sun had set..... because God once used the word "encounter", so there.... 

And it was taught in a bareita according to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that the laws of prayer are based on the laws of the daily offering in the temple. 

Aside 9.  Recall the incident, back on page 7, where Rabban Gamliel's sons returned from the "wedding hall" [Rashi's interpretation followed by Steinsaltz, but really "drinking hall"] and they forgot to say the Shema.  Gamliel said to them: "If the dawn has not arrived, you are obligated to recite Shema?" 

David Hartman seized on this, noting "Look, they are not mourning the temple every day; they are out drinking!"  They are the next generation... and, hallelujah, they are still worrying about Shema. So the whole point is, how do we build this new generation--and all new generations--so that they are not mourning the loss of the temple, the loss of the kingdom, (or the Holocaust) so they are not permanently victims. And they are wondering: when do we say the Shema?  And that is the key, according to Hartman: How do we celebrate life in defiance of history, and still be cognizant that there is a clock we are all tuned into as a community. You got 'til dawn.  

Homework:  on p. 237, imagine yourself in Zippori looking out over the Golan. You can see fields, trees, and vines.... and you're still cognizant of truma.  Read the whole page and contemplate how this opens up the second half of Berakhot. 

Next class is on December 4, 2016.  

Talmud Circle 8: Bringing Hannah's Fervor to the Liturgy we Now Have

Start of 2016 Bay to Breakers

Sunday May 15 was a windless glorious day in San Francisco. A major pilgrimage festival was underway. A crowd of more than 50,000 was walking, gawking, or running in costume from the Bay to the breakers of Ocean Beach. I foolishly attempted to traverse the City from the far side of Fell Street by car, and despite fervent prayers, the sea of people did not part, the diverted traffic did not clear, and I arrived late for our final shot at placing Hannah in context with the later rabbinic tradition. Unlike the Bay-to-Breakers race, which gets spread out and slows down as it approaches the finish line, our Talmud class sped up and compressed as we neared the end.

That was Then, And This is Now;  or, We Need to be Practical in our Praying

We picked up at the bottom of p. 217 with the rabbis contemplating some excessive prayer habits. The Mishna, they note, reports that the early generations of pious men used to spend an hour in preparation for prayer and an hour in contemplation afterwards. They took their time to get in the right frame of mind to approach God, and they did not want to seem rude by leaving too abruptly.

And the rabbis who wrote the Gemara marveled: three times a day the Mishnah directs us to pray! And these pious men spent three hours each time?  How did they get anything done? How was their Torah preserved, wondered the rabbis. And the Gemara answers: (don't worry) because they were pious it worked out.

And the rabbis tell a story to suggest we not take everything we read in the Mishna literally. The Mishna says "don't interrupt your prayer even if a king is greeting you." Everyone knows this may result in you getting your head chopped off. Rav Yosef (Babylon: 280-310 CE) implied "don't take this directive from Mishna not to interrupt your prayer literally. If it's a King of Israel who understands, fine. But if it's some foreign king... go ahead and abbreviate your prayer if you can, or interrupt it if you must."

And the rabbis elaborate with a story about a particularly pious man who was praying while traveling along his path [middle of the road?] when an officer came along and greeted him. The pious man did not respond and the officer waited for him to finish his prayers. When he finished he asked incredulously--what were you doing? Don't you know I might have had your head chopped off for insubordination, or a seditious act? Steinsaltz points out that the rabbis commenting on this story suggest the pious man didn't really take his life into his hands because the officer had a "tell." The pious man knew this particular officer was an understanding fellow and would listen to his explanation. And the pious man gave an analogy to the officer that indeed satisfied: just like the officer would not stop to greet a friend in the presence of his king, the pious man could not interrupt his prayer to The King of Kings, God, in order to greet the officer.  The pious man read the tell correctly and the officer understood.

The moral of these stories is that we be practical in our prayers: "don't follow the example of these early pious men in the Mishna  literally; be mindful of the limitations and dangers posed by our environment." Mishnah was then, and this is now! It's good advice for a religion to be practiced as a minority in Diaspora.

Aside 1: The rabbis are talking about the Amidah in these stories, the core of every worship service (also referred to as HaTefillah, or “The prayer.”) It literally means, “standing” because it refers to a series of blessings recited while standing. Using the image of master and servant, the Rabbis declared that a worshipper should come before his or her master first with words of praise, then should ask one’s petitions, and finally should withdraw with words of thanks. Thus, every Amidah is divided into three central sections: praise, petitions, and thanks. The Amidah is recited silently by all members of a congregation–or by individuals praying along–and then, in communal settings, repeated aloud by the prayer leader or cantor, with the congregation reciting “Amen” to all the blessings of the Amidah. This specific and prescribed form of The Prayer is in marked contrast to Hannah's prayer, which is pre-temple, and improvised.

Aside 2: The "Eloheinu" ["Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha`olam"] [Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe] migrated into the daily prayer over time in different places until it became a universal part of the liturgy. The Catholic Church used to have an office with oversight of synagogues, which influenced the development of liturgy [?][I have not been able to find reference to this on the internet and I may have misunderstood as well]

Snake wrapped around your ankle is o.k, but don't step on one. The rabbis reinforce the idea about the need for prudence in our approach to prayer with another story.  Mishnah said do not interrupt prayer "even if a snake is wrapped around your ankle." Fine, said the rabbis. If you don't disturb the snake it won't bite... so go on with your prayer. But if a scorpion approaches you had better stop. Mishnah was then, this is now. We must be practical and realistic in our prayer.

An ox story. The Gemara teaches that we must interrupt our prayer in case of certain danger. We get out of the way of an ox, unless we know it to be non-aggressive (shor tam). When you see a black ox, especially during the days of Nisan (Spring rutting season) you had better interrupt your prayer and give way, for that's "when Satan dances between its horns."

The non-aggressive oxen (the one who is shor tam) is simple, unperturbed, and calm. He is like Ferdinand the Bull in the children's story, like the simple child in the Passover story. Like the simple child is in dialectic with the angry child in the four questions of the Passover Seder, the shor tam oxen is in dialectic with the black ox of Nisan with Satan dancing between his horns. Both the angry ox and the angry child are agitated--they cannot connect.

A joke: A pious Jew was camping in the woods. After a long day he returns to his tent. There he encounters a fierce Grizzly bear. We think of Timothy Treadwell's last moments. The man is certain he will die. He begins to recite:  "Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu ...." when suddenly he pauses mid-prayer, because to his astonishment, he hears the bear join in .... "Eloheinu Adonai echad." With great surprise, and relief, the man asks incredulously--"You are Jewish?" The bear looks at him, and begins to recite: "Hamotzi ...." 

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa: a Cautionary Tale Against Zealotry?

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was a first generation Tannaim (1st Century CE) living in the north of Israel at the end of the second temple era. He was a student of Yohanan ben Zakkai. He is not known for developing law (Halakhah) but rather as a mystic and miracle worker. He was particularly fervent in prayer, and there are several stories about his prayers being successful. He was a miracle worker. Not an ordinary mortal we are led to assume.

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa and the arvad.  There was a place where an arvad (snake) was harming people. So the people asked Rabbi ben Dosa for his help. He came and asked them to show him where the hole of the arvad was located. They showed him and Rabbi ben Dosa placed his heel over the mouth of the hole. The arvad came out and bit him, and the arvad died. Rabbi ben Dosa slung the dead snake over his shoulder ostentatiously and marched off to the yeshiva (study hall). There, he taught the assembled students an object lesson: "See," he said, "it's not the arvad that kills, rather transgression kills."  And the sages appreciated the story, but wrote the miracle off to ben Dosa's special nature: "Woe unto the person who was attacked by an arvad and woe unto the arvad that was attacked by Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa." Don't do like ben Dosa, said the sages. Don't be an idiot and place your heel over the hole of the arvad and provoke it to bite you. Don't be a zealous fool, they implied. Focus on your prayer, but be careful.  We want to be able to do this again tomorrow.

The Rabbis of the Gemara were aware that Judaism in Diaspora is not like practicing inside the safety net of the Temple in Jerusalem.  There in Jerusalem there are no snakes, oxen, scorpions, or highwaymen. In Diaspora we encounter people unfamiliar with our tradition and we are liable to be misunderstood. So it's best to be careful. Indeed, zealotry, as illustrated by Rabbi Ben Dosa and the arvad, can be more dangerous than a snake.

Zealotry and the Fear of Sin

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa opposed Hellenism and was devoted to strict observance of Halakhah (the ritual law). A saying is attributed to him: "Anyone whose fear of sin precedes his wisdom, his wisdom will endure. And anyone whose wisdom precedes his fear of sin, his wisdom will not endure” [Avot: chapt.3]  Some suggest that this means what we are doing here in Talmud Circle doesn't cut it: we lack the requisite fear of transgression to gain wisdom. See e.g. Rabbi David Rosenfeld at Torah.org. 

Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, as I understand it, says the rabbis of the Gemara didn't endorse this potentially zealous view of sin, as illustrated by their commentary on the Hanina ben Dosa stories. They remembered that it was zealotry, in part, that lead to the loss of the Temple. For Hanina ben Dosa to say that dying from the bite of an Arvad is attributable to sin, is rather like blaming hurricane Katrina on sin. It's not what the rabbis of the Gemara are after. 

Cliff Detz pointed out that the point of religion is wisdom not just piety (mindless rule following?). The rabbis of the Gemara were not holding up nine hours of prayer (zealotry) as the way to live. And Rabbi Peretz directed us back to the beginning of Berakhot 30b (p. 203 of the Steinsaltz) where the rabbis stress that prayer is to be approached with reverence and gravity: it's about quality not quantity. 

The "fear before wisdom" distinction ben Dosa (and Rosenfeld at Torah.org) point to makes the claim that fear of sin precedes wisdom. The rabbis of the Gemara commenting on the Hanina ben Dosa arvad story raise the possibility (a view a secularist would endorse) that wisdom must precede the fear of sin, because only through wisdom can we determine what sin to fear. 

Aside 4: There are literary parallels to this Hanina ben Dosa arvad story. There is Jacob who grabbed his twin brother's heel during birth, only to later steal Esau's birthright. "Yaakov" means "heel" in Hebrew. There is, of course, also the heel of Achilles. When his mother (Thetis) gives birth to Achilles there is a prophesy that he will die young. So Thetis takes him to the river Styx, which marks the boundary between earth and the underworld, and she dips Achilles into the river, holding him by his heel.  The river has magical powers that can make you invulnerable--but because Thetis held Achilles by his heels, it left him vulnerable in that spot.

Aside 5: Here is the biblical description of Jacob and Esau struggling in the womb: ""And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." (Genesis 25:22–23)  And just like Jacob who grabbed Esau's heel and struggled with Esau, Judaism was the first born and became subordinate to the second born religion of Christianity.

Aside 6: Rabbi Moshe Meisles of Vilna, youngest son disciple of Rabbi Schenur Zalman, was a renowned Chasid. He was also a spy for the Russians against Napoleon.  Hired to  translate for the French High Command he was able to relay intelligence to the Russian commander in Vilna and save the Russian arsenal. Why would he do such a thing? The Vilna Chasidim were afraid of the French Enlightenment; they were afraid of emancipation. They liked the separateness of life in the Shtetl. The walls of the ghetto were keeping the Jews Jewish. Russia offered tradition; France threatened modernity.

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa and Erring in Prayer as a Bad Omen

We skipped an extended discussion of the halakhot (laws) of prayer contained at pp. 220-229, to continue with another Hanina ben Dosa story on p. 229. 

After laying out detailed rules governing prayer, the Mishna on p. 229 (Berakhot 34b) notes that it is a bad omen to err in your prayer. They said about Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa that when he prayed for the sick he could correctly identify who would recover and who would not. And when they asked him how he knew this, he said: "If my prayer is fluent in my mouth, I know that [it] is accepted. And if not, I know that my prayer is rejected." In other words, in order to be effective, the prescribed manner of prayer had to be recited accurately and fluently. Established liturgy matters. 

And Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was very good with his prayers. Because his prayer was fluent in his mouth he managed to successfully intercede with prayer on behalf of Raban Gamaliel's son, and on behalf of the son of his teacher Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai. But it is "his" (i.e. Hanina's) prayer that did the trick. Hanina illustrates the importance of liturgy, but the point of the story is not that our prayers will be answered if only they are fluent in our mouth. 

Hannah and Hanina: Direct Prayer but now with a Prescribed Liturgy

Hanina and Hannah are linked by more than the similarity of their names: they are bound together by the intense and direct manner in which they approach God. In the story of Hanina successfully praying for Rabbi Gamaliel's son to get well, Rabbi Hanina goes alone to the roof to pray. Like Hannah, he does this outside the minion structure, but unlike Hannah he follows a prescribed form of prayer.  Like Hannah (who wants a child) Hanina (who wants healing of another) makes a direct and fervent appeal. But whereas Hannah's prayer was inarticulate and unstructured, Hanina's Amidah was highly structured. Hannah remains the model with her fervent direct prayer, but now this is supplemented by an established liturgy. 

Judaism has made it through the post temple period by replacing the temple and sacrifice with an established liturgy and text. Hannah and Hanina together provide the model. 

Rabbi Peretz left us with a Hasidic tale: the community in a small town in Poland was gathered for Shabbat services in the local synagogue, ready to recite the prayers. All was ready and perfect but they were interrupted by a wild and crazy person. Like in a trance, obviously not knowing the details of the prayer, he fervently recited "shema, shema, shema..." over and over again. The congregants stare at him, annoyed. When will this crazy man stop so they can go on with their prayers--properly--they wondered? At this moment the Baal Shem Tov wandered in. "This man opened the gates of prayer for all of you," he said. 

The question is, can we bring the intensity of Hannah's prayer to the text and liturgy that we now have? It is a question and a challenge. 

Chagall, 1923 (one of two versions after a 1917 painting)
Chicago Art Institute

Talmud Circle 7: Learning not to Expect Too Much

Peretz dedicated this session to Werner Gleitzman, a long-time member of Temple Emanu-El who  handed out prayer books for 40 years and always marked each one at the correct location.  He died last December but his obituary only appeared in the Chronicle this past month.

We're in the Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 32b. The rabbis are continuing to wrestle with Hannah and the nature of her prayer as a model for our prayers.

In a very dense page and a half (pp. 216-217) the rabbis try to reconcile the obligation of personal prayer with the fact that our prayers are often not answered. This raises the question of "what should we expect of our prayers?" The rabbis struggle with the distinction between attitudes of "expectation" and "hope" with respect to our prayers. They also focus on the qualities of "strength" and "courage" in our approach to Torah, good deeds, prayer, and how we conduct ourselves in the world. Finally, the rabbis struggle with the idea of redemption: does God forget us or our transgressions? Does God forsake us for our transgressions? And what avenue might there be for redemption?

These passages skirt the mystical and have given rise both to Jewish Kabbalah and to Jewish ethical renewal movements.

Western Wall, 2009/Salman

A Mandate for Prayer

The biblical mandate for prayer is thin. Exodus 23:25 says "You shall serve the Lord;" and Deuteronomy 6:13 says "You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve him, and swear his name;" and the famous section of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (the Shema) says we shall keep the Lord's words "upon our heart" and you "shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." And then there is Deuteronomy 8:10: "And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you."  That seems to be it. None of this would suggest a mandate of Hannah-like prayer three times a day.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, in creating a Judaism not centered on the land and animal sacrifice, the rabbis moved to a model of prayer in lieu of the required sacrifices, and they used Hannah as the model. She provided the formula: prayer with fervor and sincere feeling of awe, silent, directly towards God, on our knees, in a room with windows facing Jerusalem. The formula includes praise, petition, and thanks. Three times a day.

Praying with no Expectation that our Prayers will be Answered: for Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick

Rabbi Hanina, says the Gemara, once promised that "Anyone who prolongs his prayer is assured his prayer does not return unanswered" (p. 216, 4th paragraph). He invoked Moses, as one does.

But this guarantee of efficacy raises complications since prayer can be notoriously ineffective. The Amoraim (writers of the Gemara, ca. 200 CE - 500 CE) noted the problem and so they turned the adage on its head: "Anyone who prolongs his prayer and expects it to be answered will ultimately come to heartache," they said. Indeed, "hope deferred makes the heart sick."

So pray, as we are commanded to do--by the rabbinic tradition--but do not expect your prayers to be answered. In fact, those who prolong their prayer but do not expect it to be answered--those people are praiseworthy. So said Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba.

Instead of getting sick of heartache waiting for your prayers to be answered, they said, "engage in Torah study. As it it stated: '() desire fulfilled is the tree of life." And Steinsaltz cites to Proverbs 13:12 ("Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.")

Aside 1: A Tree of Life

On a site dedicated to the mystical Judaism of St. Louis born Rabbi Ginsburgh, they say this about the "tree of life:" 

In the Torah, the tree symbolizes both man (“You [the Jewish people] are called ‘man'”)–“for man is the tree of the field”–and the Torah–“It [the Torah] is a tree of life for all that hold onto it.” Both man and the Torah possess all of the four major components of the tree: roots, trunk, branches, fruit. 

The roots of man (the Jewish people) are our ancestors, the patriarchs and matriarchs of our people–“the holy ones who are in the earth.” The trunk corresponds to the full body of the people of Israel that were redeemed (“born”) from Egypt, received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and entered the land of Israel. 

The branches represent the tribes of Israel (in Hebrew, the word for “tribe,” shevet–identical with the name of the month of Shevat–literally means a “branch” of a tree), and the individual tribe-members, which spread out and away from one another, each settling his own portion of the Holy Land (and who subsequently become even more dispersed, around the world, in time of exile). The fruit of the tree are the good deeds performed by each Jewish soul. 

The roots of the Torah are the inner secrets and mysteries of the Torah, the mysteries of God’s immanence in His creation (the concealed “mother”-principle in Kabbalah, corresponding to the matriarchs) and the mysteries of His absolute transcendence (the concealed “father”-principle in Kabbalah, corresponding to the patriarchs). The trunk of the tree is the body of the written and oral Torah as revealed to Israel at Sinai. The branches correspond to all of the diverse “disciplines” and methods of interpretation of the Torah, each individual soul possessing his own unique portion (approach and perspective) in the Torah. The fruit are the new insights, whose “flow” never ceases, that those who devote themselves to the study of the Torah merit to receive and reveal to the world. 

God gave the Torah to Israel to be our “eyes.” Just as God “looked into the [blueprint of the] Torah and created the world,” so did He give us the Torah in order that we look into it and thereby gain the power and direction to create and rectify the world around us.

This seems to suggest that the body of the Jewish people and the life of individual Jews runs through Torah: the study of Torah, and the knowledge of Torah.

Back on p. 216 (para. 5) the rabbis continue: "And the tree of life is nothing other than Torah.... 'It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it.'"

So study Torah and pray..., but remember "one who prolongs his prayer and does not expect it be answered" is praiseworthy.

And As You Wait, and Wait, and Wait: Turn to God with Hope

We are required to include our personal petitions in our prayers--and these petitions must be sincere and heartfelt--but we must not expect the petitions to be granted. Here is the proper attitude, said Rabbi Hama: "A person who prayed and saw that he was not answered, should pray again, as it is stated: 'Hope in the Lord, strengthen yourself, let your heart take courage, and hope in the Lord." (Psalms 27:14)

Turning to God with hope/from Waiting for Godot

Our petition, says Peretz, should be something that we think could be achieved. The miraculous nature of divine intervention notwithstanding, we should be realistic in our petitions. Like Hannah: she was of child bearing age, she had a loyal husband--her request for a child seemed reasonable. 

The rabbis seem to be saying we (must) pray with sincere hope, and courage; but we must place our hope in the Lord, not in our petition being answered.

Hope versus Expectation

Here's the trouble with expectations: sooner or later they're bound to be disappointed.  If we believe that our prayers will be answered if only we pray correctly, as Rabbi Hanina reputedly suggested, then after a while we'll think "it's not working, so why bother?" 

Hope in the Lord is vaguer, less prone to disappointment. It is sustainable even against the tribulations of Job, or the Shoa. 

Expectation implies a demand; hope is a conversation. Engaging God in prayer with hope is engaging God in a conversation. A conversation may have awkward pauses, but it can be sustained. 

Expectation is a close cousin to trust. There is an Arabic saying, Peretz reminded us: "Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel." In other words, when you go to the market with your wares, it's fine to give a prayer to Allah to keep the camel safe, but it's best to tie it up. Or as Reagan said: "trust, but verify."

Hope is akin to faith. I can trust my son won't get in trouble, but such trust is likely to be eroded if he repeatedly gets in trouble. Hope is not eroded no matter how much trouble he gets into. 

Hope is more like "The Giants are going to win the World Series this year." It would be a realistic prayer, but don't expect your prayer to be answered.

Torah, Good Deeds, Prayer, and Occupation

Four things. It's from Mishna, says Peretz. The Tannaim (creators of the Mishna ~20-220 CE) were steeped in the Greek/Roman world of Palestine. They loved the symmetry of "four." [Compare the Babylonian Talmud... Persian culture avoided fours... they used fives]

Four things require bolstering, the Sages taught: Torah, good deeds, prayer, and occupation. 

An issue of translation: Peretz pointed out that the word "occupation" here is translated from derech eretz, literally "conducting yourself in the world." It means how we conduct ourselves in the world without reference to rules. The ways of the world. 

Torah, good deeds, prayer, and how we conduct ourselves in the world.... these need to be bolstered. 

And the rabbis harkened to what the Lord told to Joshua (p. 216 bottom paragraph): "Only be strong and be extremely courageous, observe and do all of the Torah." And Steinsaltz directs us to Joshua 1:1-7 (After the death of Moses... the Lord said to Joshua... Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go)

Aside 2: Look, no Mitzvoth

The Lord says to Joshua "do according to the law which Moses commanded you." But note, this is not presented as a reference to the 613 Mitzvah, or the 10 commandments. It is much more generic.

The ten commandments are a Christian conception. Maimonides wouldn't fight to put a favored ten on a courthouse plaque. There are no ten commandments in Torah, says Peretz. There are only utterances, what God said. There are no particular mitzvoth--these are a later rabbinic tradition. 

In Exodus there is parshat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18):  "These are the ordinances which you shall set before them...." There are sentences, clear instructions, these are not yet mitzvoth.

Strong and Courageous

"Be strong in Torah and courageous in good deeds," says the Gemara. 

There are two distinct qualities here: (1)  a mental quality (courage); and (2) a physical or material quality (strength). It is the blessing Moses gives to Joshua, said Peretz. 

Rabbinic metaphysics:  being strong and courageous in good deeds has three components--opportunity, capacity, and intention (the right attitude). We must have the opportunity to do good, we must have the ability to do good, and we must have an intention to do good.

Forget and Forsake

The Gemara now turns to a short midrash on the sin of the Golden Calf. The Lord was angry and the people cried out in the desert: "The Lord has forsaken me and the Lord has forgotten me."

Mass grave at Bergen Belsen/Lt. Alan More

Again these are not redundant terms: they fall on the opposite side of the mental/physical divide. To forsake means to physically withdraw help, to abandon, it is active; to forget is mental and passive. 

The people may have sinned and angered the Lord by worshipping their (Egyptian?) idol of the golden calf, but what does this mean? How can the people get redemption? 

As with the "expectation" that prayer will be answered, the rabbis set up a straw man here with respect to redemption, just to knock it down. 

Here is the straw man:  "Forsaken is the same as forgotten," says the Gemara. And Reish Lakish adds: the community of Israel said before the Holy One... even when a man marries  second wife ... he recalls the deeds of his first wife; yet You have not only forsaken me, but You (the Lord) have forgotten me as well." Out of sight out of mind, and no opportunity for redemption, this suggests.

But the voice of God himself is brought in to clear up the confusion, in the middle paragraph on page 217.  Note, this paragraph is meant to be chanted. If you look at the Hebrew in the margin you can see how repetitive it is--more so than in the English rendering. And if we had a cantor, she would have chanted it for us beautifully (to echo Donald Trump). 

And to paraphrase God,  He says: "I have created the heavens and the firmaments and all of them I have created only for your sake; and you said the Lord has forsaken me and the Lord has forgotten me? Can a woman forget her suckling baby? Have I forgotten the ram offerings and firstborn animals that you offered before me in the desert?" Of course not! 

No, I have not forgotten you, said the Lord. Speaking to all of Israel in the same manner as God spoke to Job, when Job was pushed to the edge of his endurance by the Devil's tribulations at God's invitation. It is the tale of Mephisto... very popular in the Middle Ages. At the Second Act on Haight Street they recently reprised the F.W. Murnau movie version of this tale.  

And the people of Israel in this midrash get nervous. "If there is no forgetfulness before the throne of your Glory," they worry, "perhaps you will not forget our sin of the Golden Calf?" And if you won't forget, how can we be redeemed?

And We Enter the Land of Mysticism

And the rabbis continue with the midrash: "(And) these [elu] too shall be forgotten." And Steinsaltz adds that "These" is a reference to the sin of the Golden Calf, regarding which Israel said: "These [elu] are your gods." 

Note the plural here, "Gods."  The Israelites sinned by denying the very central tenet of Judaism--monotheism.

God forgets, but He doesn't forget! 

But if now God will, after all, forget the sin of the Golden Calf... perhaps he will forget our covenant at Sinai... the Israelites now worry! 

Don't worry, says God "I [anokhi] will not forget you." 

The story leaves us hanging. "The Gemara notes: That is what Rabbi Elazar said that Rav Oshaya said: What is the meaning of that which is written: 'These too will be forgotten?' That is the sin of the Golden Calf. And what is the meaning of 'I will not forget you? Those are the events that transpired in Sinai."

God Does Not "Forgive"

The way we deal with our children when they do wrong is we forgive, and we move on. We don't forsake (because they are our sons and daughters), and we don't forget (because it hurts and we can't, and we don't want to). We forgive and move on. That's not what God is doing here. 

To forgive means to "stop feeling anger toward someone; to stop blaming." Does to forgive also imply acceptance of the past and readiness to move on? I think so. But God very pointedly does not forgive in this midrash. Instead God forgets, but doesn't forget. And God forsakes, but doesn't forsake. 

It opens the door to redemption, says Peretz. To redeem is to "make something better," or to "save from sin or evil." Can the sin of the Golden Calf be "made better" after the fact? Can the transgression become "less sinful, or saved from sin" after the fact?  If it's violation of God's law, can it be less transgressive of the law retroactively? If not, what kind of redemption are we talking about? 

Why would the rabbis not have God forgive and move on? What difference does it make to the religion that God doesn't forgive but insists on this ambiguous attitude of forgetting and not forgetting, of forsaking, and re-approaching?  

Kabbalah took this ball and ran with it, says Peretz. Did they run somewhere, or did they just run in circles? 

The Mussar movement was inspired by these passages as well, says Peretz. From the Wiki entry:  

The Muser movement... (focused on)... moral conduct, instruction or discipline. The term ... refers to efforts to further ethical and spiritual discipline.  [It]... arose among the non-Hasidic Orthodox Lithuanian Jews as a response to the social changes brought about by the Enlightenment, and the corresponding Haskalah movement among many European Jews. ...  Religious Jews feared that their way of life was slipping away from them, observance of traditional Jewish law and custom was on the decline, and even those who remained loyal to the tradition were losing their emotional connection to its inner meaning and ethical core.

Hence a moment of Jewish renewal that focuses on doing justice and walking humbly with your God.

Christian metaphysics: Christianity wrestles with these ideas of "forsaken" and "redemption" as well, Peretz pointed out. In Luke, Jesus cries out from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Has God's essence departed and left behind only the man to die on the cross? This man, of course, was blameless of any wrongdoing and did not require redemption. Or did he?  What does God's forsaking Jesus on the cross say about man and God and redemption? 

Peretz left us with some parting thoughts: There is the talk of God's mistress in Psalms. Okaay. There is the finite and the infinite: how, as finite creatures, can we have a dialogue with the infinite? Does any religion, mystic or not have answers to such questions? Are these well formed questions in a philosophical sense? 

We left off with a typical coda by which the rabbis signal the end of a midrash (third to last paragraph of page 217): "Those are the events that transpired at Sinai." 

Our next class is on May 15, 2016. 

Talmud Circle 6: A Separation from the Land

Rashi (1040-1105)/artist unknown to me

We met on a rainy Sunday morning, March 11, 2016. Daylight savings. The bagel to talmudist ratio was 5:1 on this day. There was great homemade coffeecake too!  But the coffee didn't last.

Peretz lead us in an extended discussion on the creation of Talmud and how it has been assembled, supplemented and revised over the centuries. The Talmud reading, starting with the mnemonic that appears in the middle of page 215, through to the middle of p. 216 of the Steinsaltz Talmud Bavli, Berakhot, entailed three compact stories from rabbi Elazar that illustrate the separation of the people of Israel from the city of Jerusalem and the land. These three stories are at the heart of the transition from Israelite to Jew, as Michael Satlow puts it in his podcast series. No longer is God accessed through sacrificial offerings in the city of Jerusalem: in creating Judaism the rabbis have placed the emphasis on private direct dialogue between individual Jews and God, using Hannah as a model.

A Brief History of Manuscripts 

Peretz asked us to envision the desk of Maimonedes (1135-1204). A big wooden table, covered with many manuscripts. Candelabra, perhaps? Maimonides lived two and a half centuries before Gutenberg developed his printing press.  In Maimonedes's time all manuscripts were painstakingly copied by hand. This is a slow process. They say it takes a sofer (scribe) 18 months to handcopy a Sefer Torah (the five books of Moses). It's as labor intensive as creating a Persian carpet, and as expensive. 

Most manuscripts used by Jewish scholars through the centuries have been lost. In addition to the vagaries of time, many were burnt by the Catholic church, by crusades, by the inquisition. Others were lost during pogroms in the East, during the Shoa, and in unrest in the Middle East following the end of French and British colonial rule. Some beautiful manuscripts made their way to the Vatican library. The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. has one. 

The Aleppo Codex  was considered the oldest complete manuscript of the Tanakh (Hebrew bible) created by Jewish scribe scholars (Masoretes) working in Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Babylonia in the sixth through 10th centuries C.E. The Masoretes developed a common system of pronunciation, grammatical guides, diacritical notations, including a vowel notation system.  The ben Asher family was largely responsible for the preservation of the Masoretic texts. Aharon Moshe ben Asher in around 930 CE produced a full manuscript of the entire bible which was preserved for a thousand years in various centers of Jewish learning in the Middle East: Jerusalem, Tiberias, Alexandria, and Aleppo. Maimonedes examined it and pronounced it good and helped establish its authority. 

In 1947, in the wake of the UN declaration of the division of Mandate Palestine, the Aleppo Codex was damaged in rioting that took place in the city of Aleppo. Much of the manuscript was hidden and, in 1958, smuggled out of Syria to Jerusalem. But not all of it. The first part of the manuscript (the Pentateuch) was heavily damaged with only the last eleven pages surviving. According to Aleppocodex.org: "The final pages of the Aleppo Codex are also missing, including part of the Song of Songs, and all of Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. In the rest of the books of the prophets, some pages are missing. In all, the Aleppo Codex originally had 487 pages." According the a lengthy New York Times article in July 2012, more than 200 pages (40% of the total) are missing. 

We make do with what manuscripts we have and the tradition carries on....

The oldest known complete Torah scroll is a sheepskin manuscript created in 1155-1225 according to carbon dating, and is kept in a library at the University of Bologna. 

Prof. Mauro Perani, University of Bologna
w/. oldest Sheepskin Torah scroll, created in late 12th cent. 

Mishna, as we know, is a collection of manuscripts that forms the foundation of Talmud. To recap from our class on November 1, 2015, it was the first major book of Rabbinic literature redacted by the school of Rabbi Judah HaNasi before his death in ~217 C.E., and it reflects the views and works of a group of rabbis called the Tannaim. (Tannaim, we recall, is an Aramaic word related to Hebrew "Shana", meaning to "repeat" or "recite"; the Tannaim were active approximately 10-210 C.E.) 

The Amoraim, the rabbis that followed Judah HaNasi issued more manuscripts. They built upon the foundation of the Mishna with a lot of manuscripts that by about 500 C.E.  were gathered in the Gemara. Today we have the closed product of Mishna and Gemara, the Babylonian Talmud--we don't have snapshots along the way. [Rabbinic notes and manuscripts from the Galilee area were bound into the less discussed and used Jerusalem Talmud, ca 350-400 CE]

Of course the Talmudic tradition of writing manuscripts and commentary did not end with the closing of the Gemara. Manuscripts continued to multiply apace. We especially know of famous Jewish scholars in the 12th to 14th centuries like Rashi (1040-1105) and Maimonides (1135-1204). But there were thousands of them, as the creators of the Aleppo Codex and the Bologna scroll (above) attest.  

Maimonedes attempted to impose some order with his Mishneh Torah. The Mishneh Torah, of course, as well as the later refinement of the Shulkhan Arukh (rabbi Joseph Caro 16th century) were intended as the guide for daily life. 

An old copy of the Mishneh Torah

From Manuscripts to Printed Talmud

Between 1520 and 1523 Daniel Bomberg (d. ~1549) took the manuscript commentaries of the Babylonian Talmud and printed them in a new edition of the Talmud as we know it today. Notably he included some manuscript commentaries generated in the 12th to 14th centuries. Bomberg was a Christian born and raised in Antwerp but he settled in Venice where he established his printing press and published two complete editions of the Babylonian Talmud. He prominently placed the Mishna and Gemara (as they were closed in the Babylonian Talmud) in the center (and dominant part) of the page, and surrounded this with commentaries (Tosafot) from prominent rabbis of the 12th to the 14th centuries (e.g. Rashi, Rabbi Hananel ben Hushiel). 

Three and a half centuries later (in the 1870's-1880's) publishers in Vilna, Lithuania gleaned and improved the Bomberg. The Vilna edition of the Talmud became standard and was widely recognized as better than other competing editions (such as, e.g., the Vesheva, Kiev, Bialystock, and other editions....). 

A story: When a student, rabbi Peretz encountered Ben Zion Wacholder. Wacholder was born in 1924 in a shtetl south of Warsaw, studied in Yeshivot in Warsaw and Vilna, and was recognized as a promising young scholar before the outbreak of war in 1939. He survived the war in Poland by living under an assumed name. Moving to the U.S. after the war, he received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University (New York) in 1951, and a PhD in history from UCLA in 1960.  He became a renowned expert on the origins and development of Talmudic Judaism and played a key role in enhancing scholars’s access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Blessed with a photographic memory, Wacholder knew his sources by heart. By the time rabbi Peretz encountered him, he was blind from macular degeneration. Sharp as ever, lack of sight made him more imposing still. When he assigned a particular section of Talmud for discussion in class the next day one had better be prepared. Peretz recalled this one assignment. The students dutifully found the assigned section of Talmud in the library, made copies, and did their reading. But in class Wacholder was chagrined: "What are you reading?" he said. The students were taken aback. They cited the section they had so diligently prepared. "Which Talmud? " asked Wacholder. "Was it blue?" The blue Talmud in the library, it became apparent, was the Vesheva edition with a different lay-out and pagination.  "I don't like that one," said Wacholder, who knew the Vilna edition by heart. 

The point is, from manuscripts to printed volumes, there is no definitive edition of the Talmud.  The Vilna Talmud won out as the standard of the printed editions because it was recognized as an improvement on the Bomberg Talmud. After World War II it took on added significance by virtue of the fact that it survived the Holocaust.

Issues of Interpretation and Translation

When Steinsaltz began his project of reissuing the Talmud in modern Hebrew with punctuation and vowels and exposition in 1965, his project was greeted with skepticism in some circles. By imposing his view as to what the correct vowels might be for a word, where clauses end, and where sentences end, Steinsaltz is performing an interpretive act. When he goes further and tells us what assumed knowledge might be implied in the shorthand that is found in Talmudic manuscripts, this too is a matter of interpretation.... and hence debate. 

Steinsaltz makes the process transparent by including the "original text"--although there really is no truly original text--for comparison. Not that this helps those of us who are not fluent in both biblical and modern Hebrew. But still we get to follow along in class.

The format of the Talmud we see at the back of the Steinsaltz Talmud [e.g. Berakhot p. 64--which corresponds to where we are currently studying, pp. 215-216 for the English] derives from the Bomberg-Vilna editions. The traditional commentaries from the Bomberg and he Vilna are preserved in the right hand margins. Steinsaltz adds some of his own along the left margin. 

In our English translation, of course, the lay-out is significantly modified, and gaps in logic and "assumed knowledge" are filled in. The formatting is changed to make it readable and accessible to modern audiences who do not have decades of Yeshiva training. Like Tyndale's translation of the Vulgate bible, it stirred emotions. But so far--we think--no one has suggested Steinsaltz should be strangled at the stake and burned.  

The Steinsaltz makes no claim to perfection.  It is part and parcel of the living tradition. Just like the Vilna Talmud advanced the Bomberg edition, Steinsaltz and his team of translators (Dr. Sheldon Berger is the head of English translation) are carrying the tradition forward. And by engaging with the text, we are too. It is not fundamentally different from what happened when Maxwell House coffee tried to convert Eastern European Jewish immigrants to drink coffee by creating and giving away the "Maxwell House Haggadah." Ultimately, as David Hartman said per Peretz, the essence of Talmud is not the document in front of us but the community that surrounds the document. 

Take the mnemonic device before the break in the middle of p. 215 of the Steinsaltz Talmud Bavli, Berakhot (end of Perek V:32a): "Deeds, charity, offering, priest, fast, shoe, iron." The mnemonic introduces three teachings by rabbi Elazar. The mnemonic is not original to Rabbi Elazar (1st century CE, one of the second generation of Tannaim); it was inserted later as a memory aid. After all, not everyone has a photographic memory like Wacholder. The word "shoe" seems out of place here because it does not appear in the text that follows--the text to be memorized. The word that appears is "lock" ("Since the day the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer were locked; though I plead and call out, He shuts out my prayer")  Is "shoe" a mistake, or is it intentional? What's going on? Peretz shared with us the sleuthing of Ron Sires, who participates in the Downtown Talmud Circle: the word for "shoe," but also for "lock," is Na'al. There is a connection between the two meanings of the word in that shoes in the first century CE were fastened ("locked") with a strap. Just like the velcro strap on Peretz's Tivas. Says Ron Sires: "It does appear that the double meaning of na'al as both 'shoe' and 'lock' is one that the rabbis knew and played around with. It may be that the mnemonic used a form with the meaning of 'shoe' while the cited passage used the meaning of 'lock.' Some of the references I've found indicates that, as you said, the common meaning of 'fastening' is the link between the two." So mistake? or playful use of the word "shoe." Reasonable minds can differ. 

More about this mnemonic on p. 215: Peretz directed us to the fact that, in the original (at the bottom of page 63), the mnemonic is in parenthesis. Why in parenthesis? Because the mnemonic does not appear in the Vilna Talmud. Apparently Steinsaltz saw it in some other Talmud (maybe in Peretz's blue edition?) and he added it here... but set it apart with parenthesis.  In the English translation on page 215, of course, the mnemonic is firmly ensconced: no parenthesis, and no notation of where it came from. 

Aside 1. Dispute and disagreement and interpretation is of the essence to the tradition, says Peretz. The Judaism of the Talmud is not about biblioidolatry.  A possible exception is the Sefer Torah, which is used as a performance object. It's not like when the Catholic church thought it owned the bible. Talmud belongs to all and all may engage in it.  For the uninitiated like me, of course, this is more true now that we have translations in English, with Steinsaltz filling in logic gaps and explaining underlying assumptions, and Lehrhaus Judaica providing expert guidance.  Even so...., I am always surprised in class how much is hidden below the surface...; we still need a guiding hand. Before Steinsaltz, however, it seems clear that Talmud was strictly for the initiate.  

Aside 2. Peretz also said Talmud is not like the Koran "where you take your life into your hands when you question any part of the text." That is true, of course, if we listen to political campaigns or to noises made by raping, murdering thugs in Syria, and Iraq...., but I don't think it's true in a theological sense.

Roberta Kwall in her book The Myth of the Cultural Jew observed (p. 21): 

"Sacred texts reveal a multiplicity of meanings on their face. There is no fixed meaning from the get go. There is a multiplicity of views as to God, sin, retribution, love, justice, etc. Language of the original has multivalent quality in that its verb roots often support multiple meanings through seven types of verb construction known as baynim. Hebrew lends itself to different ideas within a single expression or word. Different people bring different interpretations. Dispute is part of the tradition."

This holds true for Islam as well. In reading about Islamic law, e.g. Wael Hallaq's An Introduction to Islamic Law (free .pdf version) they have a legal tradition of interpretation very similar to Halakhah. 

Aside 3. The six orders of the Mishna (Zera'im, Mo'ed, Nashim, Nezikin, Kodashim, and Tohorot) or in English (Seeds, Festival, Women, Damages, Holy Things, and Purities) also serve as a mnemonic to help sort the 63 tractate that are found there.  Similarly, the order of the Passover meal can be seen as a mnemonic device. 

Aside 4. "Mazel-tov" "Simen-tov" signifies all will be well. Used for celebration, as in marking life-stages: births, bar-mitzvahs, weddings. Something good is coming....

How great is Prayer? Let me count the ways: Deeds--Charity--Offering--Priest--Fast--Shoe--Iron

So, finally, we get to the text of this lecture: the three discourses of Rabbi Elazar (and friends) on pp. 215-216.

1. "Deeds."  Rabbi Elazar said "prayer is greater than good deeds without prayer." He cites as evidence that Moses, who performed many good deeds for his people, nevertheless had to pray for the privilege of seeing the promised land. "Only through prayer" did God permit him to climb the mountain and see the land. We can pile up good deeds, but to get what we want, we need to pray also. This harkens back to Hannah again. We don't know about Hannah's good deeds. We know of her tribulations. But good deeds or no, it was through direct appeal to God--through prayer--that she was granted her son. 

2. "Charity." Rabbi Elazar says further that "a fast is greater than charity." He cites as evidence that fasting involves the whole body, our entire being; charity only involves our money (which may be trivial depending on our circumstances). Again we harken back to Hannah who "looked drunk" because she was all in. By praying with her full attention she did more than charity (offering sacrifice?) 

3. "Offering." Rabbi Elazar also said that "prayer is greater than sacrifices."  As evidence he quotes from Isaiah 1:11 ["What good to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, of he goats."]  The northern kingdom has fallen and is occupied by the Assyrians. Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah is on dangerous ground. Isaiah rails against Judah's religious superficiality. A thousand years of sacrifice, "enough already!" says the Lord. Prayer is better. It is immaterial; it is from the essence of you, it is prolonged. I like it, says the Lord.

4. "Priest." Rabbi Elazar adds, citing Isaiah 1:15, "and when you (the priest) spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen, your hands are full of blood." No more of this sacrifice!  Rabbi Yohanan chimes in: "just like a priest who kills a person may not lift his hands in offering; a priest may not lift his hands to God bloody from sacrifice. 

5. "Shoe" (Ha, ha; they mean "lock"). Rabbi Elazar also said: "Since the day the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer were locked.... Though I plead and call out, He shuts out my prayer. Yet, despite the fact that the gates of prayer were locked... the gates of tears were not." And we recall that it was the tears that opened the gates of prayer for Hannah in Shiloh. Private prayer. Lips moving mute silent prayer.  Although our prayers are locked out, and God does not hear, He does hear if our prayer is accompanied by tears. Elazar refers to destruction of the First Temple here, in 586 BCE. [Lamentations 3:8--"Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked."] 

6. "Fast." And Rava cites to Lamentations 3:44: "Thou hast wrapped thyself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. Thou hast made us offscouring and refuse among the peoples." And Rava did not decree a fast on a cloudy day. Why fast if God's not going to listen to you anyway! 

7. "Iron." And Rabbi Elazar said: "Since the day the Temple was destroyed an iron wall separates Israel from their Father in heaven." He cites as evidence Ezekiel the prophet who is sent by God to speak to the people of Israel in exile, in God's voice. [Ezekiel 3:22-4:3] "And ... take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it... Jerusalem; and put siege works against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. And take an iron plate, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel." 

So what are these three stories of rabbi Elazar? The first story ("Deeds/Charity") says prayer is essential; good deeds alone are not sufficient; it is superior to charity even. The second story ("Offering/Priest") establishes that the days of sacrifice are over. One thousand years was enough. From here on out it's prayer. The third story ("Shoe/Fast/Iron") deals with the destruction of the temple and the loss of Jerusalem. No longer are prayers heard through Jerusalem. An iron wall has descended between the people of Israel and the city. A cloud has descended over the city. No longer can prayers be heard through the clouds and the iron. 

Silent, fervent, private prayer.... like Hannah. With tears. That's the way to access God. 

We left off in the middle of page 216.  Our next class is on April 10, 2016.